RE: Re: [Futurework] All the President's votes?

[Harry Pollard]

Ed,   [And now for something completely different.]   First, the lad was a puppet with those around him pulling the strings.   This evolved into a problem because the lad wasn't taking notice of those around him, but was going his own way - a loose cannon.   Now you have returned him to Edgar Bergen.   Maybe none of these things are true.   Like the rest of us, he may not be a mental giant, but mental giants are likely to get us into real trouble. However, he shows savvy.   Under his leadership, the US showed the world a new way of handling international problems. It intervened not in a nominal, and probably belated, reaction to an awful situation, but in a decisive manner, calculated to end the awfulness.   Belated reactions have killed millions upon millions. The UN is a master of the belated reaction. We have been made disturbingly aware of their strength of their resolution. One bomb and they are gone.   Unfair? Probably, but having taken note of their quick exit, one must consider them not fit to handle a dangerous world. Though they talk a lot and show a certain ability to make what are often incomprehensible and usually ephemeral resolutions. (Probably forgotten the same afternoon.)   Perhaps, they'll do the sensible thing and remove their HQ to the north, or to the south, where things are calmer.   I've seen three interviews in the last week.   One was with an American (I think) cleric in Iraq whose views were changed by reality. The Iraqis he would meet were all in favor of the American and British actions. He was vehement that we had done the right thing. We had done what the overwheming majority of the people wanted.   Two journalists were interviewed this morning. They reported that north and south Iraq is peaceful and people seem to  be well-fed and going about their business. One discussed a high school attended by more than 1,000 kids. Their major difficulty was the absence of text-books.   Perhaps Mark Steyn's drive across Iraq about which his report showed mostly normality does not seem so strange to FW people any more. (You'll recall he felt a tad uneasy walking through the evening streets of Tikrit, but no more so than he felt walking through London's Notting Hill Gate.)   The journalists said the Brits who control the south keep a low profile and there isn't much trouble.   The death and destruction is around Badgad and in the "Sunni Triangle". This will have to be dealt with by the Iranian army, not the Americans. The army is over 100,000 and heading toward 200,000.   Meanwhile, although the Triangle is supposed to be practically a war zone, we find Jon Snow of the UK's Channel Four is at the races along with thousands of Iraqi punters.   I find almost glee in the reaction of some people at every American casualty - they'll have a field day with the latest helicopter accident - for they want Bush, the Army, and the US, to fail in Iraq.   Perhaps that will elect Democrats.   Yet, if it the Iraq incursion succeeds it will  be written large in history. A police action to root out an evil government and free millions of people wo have suffered misery, torture, and death.   Given the fact that most politicians would rather do nothing than something - a politician who goes out on a limb must be regarded as a most uncommon bloke.     I said it would be something different.     Harry   -------------------------------------------------    From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Ed Weick Sent: Saturday, November 01, 2003 1:06 PM To: Karen Watters Cole; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: Re: [Futurework] All the President's votes? Principles in politics is a complex issue.  I think most politicians have them, though some have them much more strongly than others.  Obviously, because politics is the art of compromise, principles may have to be bent if objectives are to be met.  I think the good politician knows how far he can go in bending his principles and will reach a point where he can go no further while the bad or mediocre politician doesn't really have much of an idea of this.   There have been examples of politicians who, on first impression, appear to have no principles at all.  However, when something important happens and they are pressed to the wall, an unrecognized strength and ability to stand firm emerges.  I felt this about George Bush immediately after 9/11, but everything he has done since has suggested that his principles are of the wrong kind, or, perhaps better, they are not really his principles but are the principles of those who play Edgar Bergen to his Charley McCarthy.   Ed